Andy Dear | Monday, 5 February 2024
"IT'S ALL RICK HARTMAN'S FAULT"
---Andy Dear
A few weeks ago I received a text message from my good friend and fellow fly-casting enthusiast, Phil Blackmar, imploring me to "find us a warehouse" so that our casting practice regime wouldn't be dependent on external weather conditions. I think I replied something to the effect of "Yeah I'll get right on that". In all seriousness, it would be absolutely fantastic to have a facility whereby you could practice any time of the day or night, and not have to worry about external environmental conditions. Of course, all of this goes back to Rick Hartman's indoor practice facility that he had access to. This was the place where the limits of long-distance casting were pushed, and the 170 was perfected.
This morning, Phil and I were text messaging, and the subject of the warehouse came up again. Mainly because the wind blew 40mph or more here in Texas today....it was BRUTAL. Our conversation did however initiate a spark in the far reaches of my grey matter, the memory of an article about a group of fellows over in Houston who were avid precision rifle shooting enthusiasts. One of the men owned a very VERY large warehouse that during the days was used by several tenants for various industrial purposes. At night, however, it was vacant. Possessing a burning desire to push the extreme limits of precision rifle accuracy, they decided to turn the warehouse by day, into a shooting range by night. The purpose was to explore every mechanical, technical, and procedural element that went into improving accuracy in a precision rifle...all under controlled circumstances. Because this isn't a shooting website, I won't bore you with the details. You can however read the article here if you are interested.
After Phil and I got off the phone, rather than peruse the local commercial real estate listings, I went back and read that article for the first time in several years. One of the more intriguing things they discovered was that there was an optimum barrel length of 21 3/4" long that sets up a repeatable vibration pattern from shot to shot. I am currently contemplating the existance of possible parallels between barrel length and rod length in this capacity.
The point here is that there are many things to be learned about the performance of both participant and their gear under extremely controlled circumstances. If nothing else, it takes many inhibiting variables out of the equation, making evaluation of performance much easier. Plus, I just think it would be cool to be able to go flycast indoors at midnight during a bout of insomnia.
For now, Phil and I will have to make do with our outdoor, real-world facilities that subject us to wind, rain, sunburn, and various biting and stinging insects. If however one day I win the lottery, I may just buy Phil and me a warehouse to practice in. And when my wife asks why I would spend that much money on a casting practice facility, I'll just blame the whole thing on Rick Hartman for fueling my obsession with distance casting!
Hope you all are havin a great week,
Andy